Inside the DS3

After removing two very heavy side panels, once flipped over, we saw why. There are a few millimetres of sound deadening material used inside of both side panels. Of course, it cannot go edge to edge, but the entire surface other than where it attaches to the rest of the chassis is indeed covered with it.

Our first glance into the chassis shows us that the wiring has been bundles for a safe trip, and it appears there are a lot of wires as well. We also see a twist tie in the ODD bays, and there is a box of hardware found inside of them.

The trio of ODD bays offers tool-free latches on this side, and just a bit later you will see them again on the back as well. The wiring does travel through the bays from the I/O panel, but full access is left for the three bays.

The storage drive rack offers a thinner set of bays at the top for 2.5" drives, while the lower sections hold up to five 3.5" drives. The top section as well as the middle is removable after some tricky negotiation with a screw driver, and they can be shifted left to a second drive stand. The lowest section does not have screws, so it stays in place since they used rivets to mount that.

The top of the chassis offers the correct spacing for a dual 140mm based AIO, but the 120mm fan spacing is spread too far to use like that. For the current time, we still see the pads that Nanoxia has used to absorb sound as well as blocking it from coming out the top of the chassis.

The motherboard tray has a medium to large access hole, made for Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX and ATX motherboards, and is stamped with structure in mind. There are plenty of places to tie up any loose wiring, and the holes for wiring all have grommets in them as well.

In the floor of the chassis, we find plenty of room for the PSU at the back of the chassis, and even use of a PSU gasket in this design to work with the rubber pads on the floor to isolate the unit. The optional fan location is currently blocked with the optional HDD rack base, but is screwed down and can be removed.

The pair in the front matches this green bladed 120mm fan we find at the rear, and all are powered via 3-pin fan connections. The expansions slots below use ventilated covers and are secured with thumbscrews.

Behind the motherboard tray there is very near 20mm behind the motherboard tray to stash any wiring. The left side is more open to a view, but is also deeper and will allow a place to stack up SATA leads or Molex runs.

Everything about the front I/O wiring is black from the wire color to the connections at the ends. There are the standards for the LEDs and buttons, a native USB 3.0, USB 2.0 and HD Audio to connect. We also see a Molex lead to power the fan controller, but the power lead is not connected in ours. We also see two leads with three fan clips on them to use with the fan controllers, if it were connected and functional.

Since we just discussed the wiring, this image seemed fitting to follow it. Keep in mind with any management you do with the wiring, that it is attached to the bezel, and if you want access to the fan filter for cleaning, leave a fair bit of slack in the leads.

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